


nightshade

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [116]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Coma, Gen, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 00:09:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20218549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: Drink, my friend--





	nightshade

In your

Dream

(it’s not a dream)

There is a man hovering over you, only a face and a pair of hands, only a dark beard and eyes like twin coals, only the cold rim of a cup against your lips,

_Drink, my friend_, he says, or his mouth does, but he—

(it’s not your friend)

In the steely night, silver-smooth, you don’t have a voice or a word or a name. _R_, you hold in your eyes, _R, U,_ but are those letters about to tell you of _runes_? Are runes the beginning or the end?

You cannot open your eyes. You _do_ have eyes, and maybe they are already open. Through a slit like a crack in a wall, there you see a dark-haired boy praying, blunt hands covering his face. Overhead, a spider dangles. It settles on your forehead and grows and grows.

(it’s a memory, this one)

In your—dream—the collar is tightening, but the spikes are sheathed. In your dream, your friend is a boy holding you by the wrists and promising you a kingdom. Doesn’t he know that you never asked for a kingdom?

_Rumil we are surrounded what do we do they’ll never make it past the bridge Feanor built that bridge and he does not lie_

(Rumil.)

_Drink, my friend, just a little longer now_

Taste seems strange. You find it again: bitterness, and dread. What is the man who is not your friend doing to you? Are you a whole body, a whole man, for something to be _done_ to? The spider is gone but the maps remain. The maps are gone but there is always a boy by your bedside. Sometimes the boy has a knife, but he doesn’t kill you.

Maybe that is because you are already dead.


End file.
